{"id":1064,"date":"2012-12-19T15:08:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T23:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","slug":"book-review-victor-the-reluctant-vulture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/book-review-victor-the-reluctant-vulture\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: “Victor, the Reluctant Vulture”"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend, Squeeky, and I were talking about movie titles.\u00a0 I\u2019d mentioned to her that so many Disney movies used the same type of title.\u00a0 My parents made some of those movies and they had titles like, \u201cGreta, the Misfit Greyhound\u201d, \u201cTwister, the Bull from the Sky\u201d, \u201cChester, Yesterday\u2019s Horse\u201d, and perhaps my favorite, \u201cStormy, the Thoroughbred with an Inferiority Complex\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not only did Squeeky tell me about \u201cVictor, the Reluctant Vulture\u201d, but one day I found a package in my mail and opened it to find that book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let me tell you right now that this is a \u201ckid\u2019s\u201d book.\u00a0 The jacket explains that it\u2019s written for \u201clate primary and intermediate readers\u201d.\u00a0 Well, I must be one of those for, although I could tell who it was written for, as I immersed myself in the pages of this beautifully illustrated story, I was enthralled.\u00a0 Its humor started with the very first sentence, in which the title-bird realizes just what is expected to be his diet.\u00a0 That humor continues through the book as Victor learns to fly and begins to gain an appreciation of his important place in the scheme of things.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s because my own kids, Janet and Hooper, were raised on reading and road-kill but, sitting by myself, I found I was chuckling aloud at several places including the only line I\u2019ll directly quote: When Victor returns home late after battling to try and become something he\u2019s not, his kindly mother asks him, \u201cWould you like me to regurgitate something for you, Dear?\u201d<\/p>\n

In good cartoon tradition, all of the Vultures\u2019 names begin with \u201cV\u201d.\u00a0 Victor\u2019s wiseass brother is \u201cVinnie\u201d, his father is \u201cVern\u201d and his kindly uncle is \u201cVlad\u201d.\u00a0 The Red Tailed hawks\u2019 names all begin with \u201cR\u201d, and the Harris\u2019 Hawks with \u201cH\u201d.\u00a0 There\u2019s also an erudite Peregrine falcon named Percival.<\/p>\n

I absolutely loved this book.\u00a0 Not only does it contain a perfectly crafted story that teaches about the \u201ccircle of life\u201d and the importance of every creature, but it also contains wonderful natural history lessons, including a great Appendix and Glossary at the end.<\/p>\n

Many of the Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal readers and subscribers are parents, aunts, uncles or friends of just the people for whom this book was written.\u00a0 I can\u2019t recommend it highly enough.\u00a0 And if you do get it for someone else, be sure you take the time to read it yourself!<\/p>\n

Brian<\/em><\/p>\n

Victor the Reluctant Vulture<\/p>\n

By Jonathan Hanson<\/p>\n

Illustrated by Kim Kanoa Duffeck<\/p>\n

Published by The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Press (www.desertmuseum.org<\/a>) and available from the publisher or other outlets, including Amazon.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I was enthralled”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}